I Am Not My Own
by methylethyl
Summary: "Torchwood's disability pay is about this big-" Ianto held up his thumb and index finger, about two centimeters apart. "-and comes out of a gun at a thousand meters per second." Or, the fic in which Ianto bleeds everywhere all the time.
1. Chapter 1

**I Am Not My Own**

His hand had been bleeding too heavily to see how long or deep the gash actually was, but the fact that Ianto had described the pain as 'stabbing' upon the slightest twitch of his fingers had been enough to make Owen pull out the towel from his emergency kit and order Tosh to wrap it up tightly and hold it there until they got back to the Hub.

Peeling back the bloody towel down in the medical bay had revealed a gash that ran from the center of Ianto's palm all the way up to the delicate webbing between his pinky and ring fingers. It wasn't long, but a quick cleaning by Owen determined that it was actually quite deep, and therefore in need of stitches—much to Ianto's annoyance.

"I'm not redoing these, Jones, and if I catch you so much as bending your pinkie I'm putting you in a splint for three weeks," Owen threatened as he pushed the needle into Ianto's skin again.

Ianto rolled his eyes.

"And," Owen added as he pulled the needle out, "I'll tell Gwen that if you don't wear it, you'll lose the use of your fingers."

"Death by Gwen Cooper's nagging," Ianto said dryly. "I honestly can't think of a worse way to go."

"I don't know about that," Jack cut in, with his usual impeccable balance of humor and sharp reminder that he was _different_. "I can think of one or two ways that might be worse."

Ianto glanced over to where Jack was leaning against the railing above the medical bay.

"I was just telling Teaboy here that he got bloody lucky with this cut," Owen said, not looking up from his work. "Just missed some very crucial nerves that would have led to complete loss of his fingers, and he's going to have to be _very fucking careful_ until this heals up, if he wants to continue avoiding that particular barrel of laughs."

Ianto had never in his life heard of anyone losing the use of their fingers because of a three-inch cut on their palm.

"Best course of action would be a splint," Owen finished with a decisive nod.

"A splint, huh?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

Ianto, however, already saw the flaw in Owen's plan.

"I'm not wearing a splint," Ianto said calmly. "It is a _minor_ cut, and furthermore, I am quite capable of keeping my hand immobile for a few days."

"Keeping your hand what?" Jack asked.

"Immob—" Ianto stopped, and paused to sigh and roll his eyes to the ceiling. "Jack."

"What about suppositious?" Jack tried. "Mercurial? Vacillating? C'mon, you know how I love those vowels—"

"So, splint?" Owen broke in, looking expectantly at Jack.

Jack shrugged. "It's Ianto's hand."

"And Ianto's hand is not going to have a splint," Ianto finished neatly. He extended his now completely-stitched hand a bit further across the table. "Bandages, if you will."

Jack left, and Owen scowled before going to rummage for bandages.

"He would have forced Gwen to wear the splint," Owen pointed out somewhat viciously, when he returned with a thick roll of gauze.

"Gwen can't do her job with one hand," Ianto replied, carefully unperturbed. "I, on the other hand, am perfectly capable of making a cup of coffee with one hand."

Owen smirked, and was blessedly silent.

ooo

Jack's bed was very narrow, and whenever he and Jack ended up tangled and draped and sweaty, Ianto was always very _conscious _of things. Where Jack's hands were. Where his should be. If Jack was getting uncomfortable, because it was Jack and he wouldn't say anything if he was. If Ianto should mention that he was uncomfortable, because then Jack might get up to go shower or check on the Rift but on the other hand his arm was completely numb…

It was all so close and casual and wrong when there was so much still undecided.

Of course, they fit if they spooned, but Jack only did that when he slept (it had happened twice, ever, and Ianto remembered both times in great detail because he hadn't slept a wink). He'd probably indulge Ianto, if he asked, but Ianto… didn't ask.

"So there's this planet—doesn't exist now, sort of imploded about two million years ago," Jack was saying, as Ianto agreeably listened and nodded in the right places, "but thing about it was that the ground was very unstable and always falling in, so they had to live in the clouds. Not clouds like here on Earth, but these big blue-purple swirls that stretched on for miles and miles…"

It wasn't until Jack had rambled on about the planet that lived in the clouds for a good ten minutes that Ianto shifted his injured hand and noticed that the bandages had gone crimson.

"Jack," he said slowly, laying his good hand on Jack's chest without taking his eyes off the very, very red bandage on his hand.

"—they'd urinate through these little holes in the—oh _shit_."

Slowly, Ianto nodded.

ooo

None of the stitches had popped, so thankfully they didn't have to call Owen in. Ianto carefully wiped away the blood, let Jack wrap it with new bandages, and deciding the throbbing pain wasn't quite bad enough to warrant a tablet.

ooo

"Oh, thank God," Tosh said, when Ianto walked into the Hub. "I'm really sorry, I know it was your day off, but—"

Ianto managed a tight smile. "It's all right. I've come to expect that my 'days' off actually mean four to twelve hours off, if I'm lucky."

Tosh still looked slightly guilty from her computer. "I really am sorry."

"It's all right," Ianto repeated, smile tightening a little more. He took the steps up to Tosh's station, briefly glancing up to see that the lights in Jack's office were off. He was either off brooding or out on a Rift alert by himself.

"AG Meek—shoe shopping, Ianto?" Tosh asked, no doubt spying the bag in his hand.

"Shoes have been feeling a bit off, lately," Ianto replied, setting the bag on the floor just under Tosh's desk. "Thought it was time for a new pair, anyway."

"Yes, I—oh my, Ianto! Your hand!"

The bandages were again drenched in blood.

"I was hoping you'd help me to rewrap it," Ianto said, with the same tight smile.

ooo

"I say we grab the biggest gun's we've—bloody hell, Ianto!" Gwen exclaimed, breaking off in midsentence and staring at—

His hand.

"Again?" Jack said, just as Tosh pitched in with a sympathetic, "That's just not healing, is it?"

Jack and Tosh turned to stare at each other for a moment, and then without a word, they turned their heads to Ianto.

"It's fine," Ianto said hurriedly, shoving the stupid bleeding thing under the table. "Really."

"Exactly how many times has your hand been 'fine'?" Owen demanded.

"It's certainly a lot more fine than those people trapped in the warehouse," Ianto replied pointedly, giving a sharp nod at the picture on the screen.

"Sod the people in the warehouse, I still get my morning coffee if their hands fall off," Owen snapped. "How many times has it bled like this?"

"Three or four," Ianto muttered. "Look, I really—"

"Splint," Owen interrupted, giving Jack a look. Like Ianto's health was Jack's responsibility, just because Jack and Ianto were shagging a bit (a lot).

"I haven't been moving it!" Ianto insisted. "It just starts bleeding."

"It's been three days, you nit—bleeding like this after three days is a bad, bad sign. Do you want to keep using those fingers or not?"

For the briefest moment, Jack's eyes met Ianto's, but Ianto quickly looked away.

"Fine," he said shortly, pushing back his chair. "Let's get this over with, shall we?"

ooo

"See, this bit here's healing," Owen said, indicating the part of the gash that began just outside the center of Ianto's palm and ran to the webbing between his ring and pinky fingers. "But this bit here—" The bit closer to the center of his palm, about an inch long. "—is not. In fact, I'd venture to say it hasn't so much as made a new cell since it was first cut open."

Ianto stared at his palm, wiped free of blood and not bleeding for once.

"See, normally," Owen went on as he turned and opened a drawer, "that happens because it's infected, but that is one uninfected wound. No pus, swelling, discoloration, or fever, not to mention the fact that I disinfected the bejezus out of it before I stitched you up."

Ianto raised his eyebrows. "So what does that mean?"

"Means I'm taking blood," Owen replied, raising a handful of empty vials. He shut the drawer he'd pulled them out of, opened the one above it, and pulled out a package of tubing with a needle on one end.

"You could probably just squeeze it out of the gauze," Ianto said dryly, nodding at the glistening bandages that lay further down the autopsy table.

"If you're afraid of the needle, I'm sure we could get Jack to come down and hold your hand," Owen shot back.

Ianto almost replied that Jack had only ever held his hand during sex.

Jack _liked_ to hold hands during sex. Ianto had been incredibly surprised to discover that someone as restless as Jack went for such a grounding gesture, but Jack… had a thing about hands. On one of the two nights that Ianto had spent with Jack in which Jack had actually slept, Ianto had heard him muttering in his sleep: "Hold his hand, keep holding his hand…"

"At Torchwood London," Ianto said instead, as Owen unpacked the tubing, "they had alien technology that allowed them to take a blood sample without taking any blood—it locked on to your blood composition and changed a vial of water into an exact copy of your blood."

"Bully for Torchwood London," Owen muttered. He snapped the rubber band once, rolled up Ianto's sleeve, and wiped off the inside of his elbow with an alcohol pad.

"Tosh will have the van ready in five," Jack's voice announced. Ianto wasn't facing him, but he guessed from the increasing volume that Jack was approaching the medical bay. "Ianto, you got your splint? Oh, wait. Blood work. Owen, why are we doing blood work?"

Owen repeated what he'd just said to Ianto, in fewer words, as he slid the needle into Ianto's skin. Ianto kicked his heels against the legs of the autopsy table, hating the feel of awkward, unbroken shoes around his feet.

"What are you thinking?" Jack asked, when Owen had finished relaying.

Ianto wished that he could see Jack's face.

"We're looking at two things," Owen replied, as blood filled the third vial. "Either there's some very serious trauma hiding in there that isn't displaying with the proper symptoms, or we're looking at some kind of outside influence."

"How long will the blood work take?"

"About three hours, give or take," Owen answered with a shrug.

Jack said nothing.

"Last vial," Owen told Ianto, as he changed out the vial again. "Have some biscuits in the car so you don't fall flat on your face when you step out of the SUV."

"Ianto's going to stay back and coordinate," Jack cut in, before Ianto could reply. "If it is an effect of something alien, I don't want him sprouting new symptoms in the middle of a fight."

Ianto could have argued for staying in the car, or that he'd gone three days without developing new symptoms, or that they were stretched thin enough with five people on this case, let alone four—but instead he gave a nod to the Jack he couldn't see.

"Yes, sir," he said quietly.

The sound of Jack's boots walking away echoed in his ears.

The center of his palm was bleeding again.

ooo

A loud snarl and Jack's agonized scream came through the Bluetooth, quickly followed by a gunshot and an inhuman shriek.

"Got 'im!" Owen's voice said triumphantly.

There was a faint rasping, gurgling noise.

"Three to go."

"Is Jack all right?" Tosh asked, just as breathless. Small and quick, her flashing dot had pulled ahead of Owen and Jack a few minutes ago, and she was probably too far ahead, too hot in pursuit to turn around to see.

Owen's little flashing dot hadn't stopped longer than it had taken to shoot the thing.

Jack's wasn't moving. The rasping, gurgling sound was gone.

"Owen?" Gwen's worried voice came in. "Owen, how's Jack?"

"Dead, or close to it," Owen replied. "Not stopping to check. He'll be up in a few, anyway."

"I'll grab the SUV and join you guys as soon as the police show up for these people," Gwen promised.

Ianto unstuck his throat. "Jack has the keys to SUV, though, doesn't he?"

There was a pause, and then Gwen swore. "Right. Right—_shit_."

"I can start the SUV remotely," Ianto said. "New feature, as of last Friday night."

"Oh, that's fantastic," Gwen breathed. "You're brilliant, Ianto!"

"Mostly Tosh," Ianto replied.

"Ianto and I were also a bit drunk when we installed it. The car may or may not play the Imperial March when it starts, I don't know if we remembered to take it out. Just as a warning," Tosh put in, words still quick and breathy as she ran.

Ianto glanced down and saw the bandages that poked out from underneath the splint he'd been made to wear were red again. Swallowing a sigh, he lifted his good hand to bring up the remote control program for the SUV—

Blood.

In his ear, Jack's enormous back-to-life gasp registered dimly.

A shot rang out, followed by Tosh's gasp of, "I've got one! I've got one, it's down."

"Two left, then."

"Owen, Tosh, where are you guys?"

"Just passed St. Peter's and Bungalow. You're never going to catch up."

"Dammit. Ianto, can you give me a shortcut?"

"Police are here. Ianto, you want to start up the SUV?"

"Ianto, shortcut, now please."

"Ianto?"

"Ianto?"

"_Ianto!_"

"Sorry," Ianto finally managed. "I—sorry. My other hand is bleeding. I… don't think I can type anymore."

"What d'you mean, your _other _hand? What the bloody hell did you find to cut it on at a bloody _desk?_"

"Nothing," Ianto answered, aware that his voice shook. "It was just—it's just bleeding. They're both bleeding. It doesn't even hurt."

"Fuck," Owen swore. His little flashing dot was slowing down. "Okay, there's nothing you can do other than get a towel on it—them—and keep as much pressure on as possible. Jack, if you want Loverboy to live—"

"Double back to the warehouse," Jack ordered. "I'll meet you on St. Peters, give you the keys to the SUV. Gwen, get a car, pick me up on the way so we can catch up with Tosh. Ianto, hang in there, all right?"

Ianto stared at the fat drops of blood that dripped from his fingers, falling to the floor with quiet splats. He'd have to clean that up later—provided that he could somehow hold a mop. No one else would clean it.

"Ianto?" Jack pressed.

"Hanging," Ianto replied.

ooo

"What do you mean, there was no wound?" Gwen asked, frowning.

Ianto shifted uncomfortably. His left hand had been re-bandaged and splinted, but his right hand was bandage and splint free, a flawless white against the pale blue scrubs Owen had insisted he change into. His shoes had also been abandoned, which actually felt quite wonderful—he wiggled his toes a little, both for the feeling of freedom and to distract himself from the fact the entire team was hearing this conversation.

If Ianto'd had things his way, this would have never gone past himself and Owen—and Jack, if absolutely necessary.

"I mean, there's no cut, no bruise, not even a scar," Owen said impatiently. "But before I got the blood cleaned off of it, I _saw_ something dark in the center of his palm bleeding. Not to mention, look at those damn towels."

He was referring to the incredibly bloody towels Ianto had wrapped his hands in until Owen had arrived. Gwen went a little pale at the sight.

"Also, he should be passed out from losing all that blood, not just mildly dizzy," Owen went on, "and all his blood work came back clear, _and _his DNA matches exactly to the sample we got when we hired him."

"So this is definitely something alien, then?" Gwen asked.

"In my not-so-humble opinion. Harkness, you seen anything like this before?"

"Spontaneous bleeding from a wound that doesn't exist?" Jack shook his head. "Nope. Ianto, you seen anything in the archives?"

Ianto shook his head. "No. I can start looking through the records, though."

"And if you start bleeding all over the archives?" Owen asked.

"I won't," Ianto said succinctly.

Owen rolled his eyes.

"All right," Jack said, cutting off whatever snarky response Owen had planned. "Gwen, I want you to take care of the paperwork from the warehouse… debacle thing. Owen—"

"I've already got more tests I want to run," Owen interrupted. "And I've got old medical logs I can flip through."

Jack nodded. "All right. Ianto, give Owen what he needs and then go down to the archives. Tosh, I want you to look through all of our electronic archives for anything related to spontaneous bleeding, but use your laptop and keep Ianto company in the archives, just in case."

Gwen and Tosh nodded and dispersed.

"Oi! Tosh!" Owen called, dropping the package of tubing he'd been about to open. He hurried up the ramp, effectively abandoning Ianto. "Where'd you put the Bekaran deep tissue scanner? 'Cause it's not back in the drawer like you promised it would be when you took it out for modifications last week…"

Ianto suppressed a sigh, and wiggled his toes to revel in his shoe-freedom once more.

And then Jack was there, right in front of him, and as their eyes locked emotions slammed into his chest where only seconds ago it had been numb. Ianto was absolutely horrified to realize that speaking might result in his bursting into tears.

He averted his eyes, and said nothing.

"How are you, Ianto?" Jack asked with uncharacteristic softness that only served to remind Ianto that he wasn't okay. Bastard.

The lump in his throat suddenly doubled in size.

Forcibly, he swallowed. "As well as I can be, considering."

The words were rough and quiet, and he absolutely _refused_ to meet Jack's eyes. Jack didn't want a crying shag, except maybe to boost his ego. Ianto was not an ego boost. And he wasn't going to cry.

"This is far from the worst thing I've seen happen in Torchwood," Jack said, with a forced cheeriness. "One time, back in the seventies, Paul accidentally picked up what he thought was a Nuuvian egg, but was—"

"Jack," Ianto interrupted, forcing himself to meet Jack's eyes. "I—"

Jack waited.

"Don't," Ianto choked out. "Just don't. Please."

With a sigh, Jack plopped down on the autopsy table next to Ianto and slung an arm around him, pulling him close.

Ianto prayed, prayed, _prayed_ that no one was seeing this.

He just wanted curl up right here with Jack and never move again.

"It's going to be okay," Jack whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

Ianto balled his good hand into a fist, inhaled the scent of Jack, and screwed up his face against the sob that threatened to burst free. His hand hurt, his back was absolutely killing him, and he was bleeding all over the place, couldn't even take refuge in the archives anymore—

Hot, stabbing pain shot down his back, and somewhere beyond his sharp inhale he heard Tosh shriek and Gwen and Owen's startled chorus of, "Bloody fucking hell!"

Jack stiffened, pushing Ianto away and grabbing him by the shoulders. Ianto gripped at Jack's forearms as residual pangs of agony shot up and down his spine.

"Ianto?" Jack demanded.

"Jack!" Gwen yelled, sounding terrified. "Jack—"

"Teaboy!" Owen barked.

"Owen—"

"That's fucking blood, don't tell me it's not, I know blood when I see it. Bloody—fucking—"

"Oh God," Tosh breathed.

And then, right next to Ianto, a carefully controlled exhale of shock.

Ianto slowly opened his eyes.

At first, he didn't see what the problem was. Then he focused on the direction that Jack was staring in, and saw what had caught everyone's attention.

It was the water tower that sat in the middle of the Hub, normally covered in a sheet of water and giving off a faint mist. But instead of water running down the sides of the tower, it was blood. Thick and red and runny, splashing into a pool of blood at the bottom with a deeper, louder noise than the water ever had.

And the hands gripping Jack's forearms were bleeding all over the light blue sleeves of Jack's shirt.

ooo

"These are from your bed," Ianto noted, picking up the pillow that lay on the stained floor.

The glass door shut behind him. Jack hadn't followed him in.

"I've got extras," Jack said with a shrug. "And it's not like you're actually a prisoner—you know that, right? This isn't…"

"I know," Ianto said quickly.

Jack studied him, inhaling slowly and deeply as his eyes took in Ianto's form.

_Hold my hand_, Ianto thought out of nowhere. _Hold my hand like you do when we're shagging, like you'd rather break all the bones in my hand and rip it right off my wrist than ever let go. Hold my hand like you need me._

Jack's mouth opened.

Ianto's heart skipped.

"Ianto," Jack said, so gently and softly, "your hands are bleeding again."

ooo

"Okay," Owen said, taking the pointer from Tosh and aiming it at the screen. "Are we all ready for this?"

Gwen rolled her eyes.

Ianto glanced out the glass window of the conference room at the water tower than ran with water again. He wondered what they'd done with all that blood.

"The blood from the water tower was completely human," Owen announced. "Full composition—red blood cells, white blood cells, proteins, hormones, the whole lot. It's like someone robbed a blood bank, except for one thing: it all came from one person."

Ianto waited for the ax to fall.

"And it's not Ianto."

He blinked. Around the table, Jack and Tosh also looked surprised.

"Why would it be Ianto's blood?" Gwen asked.

Owen shrugged one shoulder. "Well, it was his fault, wasn't it?"

"_Owen_," Jack said sharply, just as Ianto protested with an annoyed, "I didn't _do_ anything."

Owen rolled his eyes. "Right. Well, either way, the blood wasn't Ianto's, but it does belong to a human male, about 28 years old. Very boring and average. What's interesting is two things—one, the mitochondrial DNA puts this guy as existing at least a thousand years ago, and two, those towels Ianto keeps bloodying up? About half of that blood belongs to this mystery bloke."

"You mean Ianto's been bleeding someone else's blood?" Gwen asked incredulously.

Even Jack's eyebrows were nearing his hairline.

"It's about a 1:1 ratio in both hands, as far as I can tell," Owen said. "Which explains why he's bleeding all over the place and managing not to pass out."

"But—but where's it coming from?" Gwen asked. "The blood, I mean. It can't just be appearing out of nowhere, can it?"

"But it is, isn't it?" Tosh pointed out. "I mean, you saw the water tower yesterday. It's not like the water just turned into blood."

Owen paused.

Ianto shook his head, his heart speeding up ever so slightly. "It's not the same, Owen."

"Expert in alien artifacts, now, are you?" Owen asked, raising his eyebrows. "A trained monkey could do your job, and you're telling me that you know exactly how Torchwood One's little device worked?"

Instantly, Jack's eyes narrowed.

Ianto held in a sigh at the predictable, oh so bloody _predictable_ response.

"I don't know how it worked," he told Owen shortly. "I don't even know what it was called. I just know that I didn't have to get stabbed with a needle seven times to give a blood sample, and that it wasn't capable of changing an entire water tower into blood."

"First off, I've never had to stab you seven times to get your vein," Owen snapped. "First time, every time. Stop looking at me like that, Gwen, it was one time and you _twitched_. Second—"

"Hold up," Jack said, raising a hand. "Ianto, Owen, what is this device and why is it relevant?"

Ianto sighed. "It was a device used by Torchwood London. It changed a vial of water into an exact copy of your blood, so they never had to actually take blood from any of their employees. But I didn't think that—"

"I know what that is," Jack interrupted, frowning. "But that wouldn't explain the water tower—it can't produce more blood than is present in the original body. Also, it doesn't cause spontaneous bleeding."

Owen sat back in his chair, disgruntled.

Ianto very carefully did not give Owen a smug look.

ooo

Ianto's hands started to bleed about an hour later, just as he and Tosh were about to head off to the archives. As Ianto resignedly trudged over to the medical bay, Gwen's shriek alerted them all to the bloody streaks tracking behind him on the floor.

It seemed his feet were now bleeding, in addition to his hands.

"Ought to be collecting this and storing it," Owen grumbled as he carefully unwrapped the bandage from the only limb Ianto had that was _actually_ injured. "Can make a right fortune selling blood on the black market, you know."

"I want a cut. Disability pay," Ianto muttered.

"As wonderful as that scam sounds, you'd probably get more money out of Torchwood's disability pay," Jack said as he appeared out of nowhere, walking down the ramp to the medical bay.

Ianto snorted. "Torchwood's disability pay is about this big—" He held up his thumb and index finger, about half an inch apart.

Annoyed, Owen batted the bleeding hand back down to its towel.

"—and comes out of a gun at approximately one hundred meters per second," Ianto finished.

Jack gave him a Look.

"Lie down," Owen ordered, giving Ianto's shoulder a little push.

"Why?" Ianto asked, not yielding.

"Because you're losing too much blood too fast with four holes instead of two, and I don't want to have to mop up any more of your bodily fluids than I have to."

Ianto frowned. "I'm not sure to whether to point out that _I'll_ be the one cleaning, that there's a hose and a drain down here so you don't have to mop, or that technically, half of it isn't my bodily fluid at all."

"Whatever. Lie back the moment you do feel dizzy, then," Owen said, scowling. He turned and grabbed a white rag off the counter (next to the pile of thin white towels that had been dug out of the back recesses of the room next to the showers in the basement, probably hadn't been laundered in years, probably full of bacteria—not that you could get infections when there were no wounds, right? Or what if something got inside while it was bleeding, and then got stuck in there—

"Ianto?"

Ianto blinked. "Sorry."

"Right. Jack, I've got tests to run, you can clean up the Bloody Baron here—there's a basin and cloths. Monitor should beep if anything drastically changes. Make him lie down _before_ he vomits, not after, thanks."

Jack nodded, glancing over at the table where the basin and cloths were.

"Jack, no—"

"It's fine, Ianto," Jack said calmly, going for the basin.

Owen left, muttering something about drama queens.

Ianto frowned. "I'm perfectly capable of—"

"Ianto," Jack interrupted again. He set the basin down next to Ianto, staring him right in the eyes. "Let me do this."

Ianto, getting a little dizzy and tired of his back aching all the time, couldn't bring himself to argue.

Jack washed his hands first. He didn't say anything, which Ianto appreciated for a reason he didn't quite understand, just took the wet cloth to Ianto's palm and wiped away the blood as it streamed out of the dark cut in the center. He washed the crusted blood from Ianto's fingers, and wiped the streaks of blood from his forearms, movements gentle and cleansing.

Ianto's ears had an odd ringing in them. He drifted, probably more than was safe, but Owen was right about him losing this much blood. It was coming out entirely too quickly.

"Ianto?" Jack's voice asked.

With a little effort, Ianto made the room slide back into focus most of the way. Jack was standing in front of him, a white cloth in hand and probably some kind of telling expression on his face that Ianto couldn't quite make out. Or understand. One of the two.

Ianto made a humming noise.

Jack made a noise in return, and then got down on his knees.

"What, now?" Ianto asked, frowning down at the fuzzy image—and then it all came into focus and he realized that Jack was not down there to suck his cock. "Shit. Sorry. Things are blurry, like… being underwater."

"I bet," Jack said from somewhere down below. Ianto attempted to focus, but the world swam out of focus and even more out of focus, making his head and his back hurt.

"Jack, there is no water, right?" Ianto asked.

He felt Jack squeeze his calf. "No. No water."

Ianto blinked, twice, and the world resolved a little. "Right. Sorry. Of course there isn't water."

Down on the floor, Jack had the basin and was rubbing Ianto's feet with the same gentle, cleansing motions he'd used with his hands, but this felt different. Special. Ianto's feet had been feeling strange for the last few days, but with Jack's hands, the cloth, the water running over them—they felt _right_.

"Talk, Ianto," Jack prodded gently. "I need to know you're still conscious up there."

"What should I say?"

"Whatever comes to mind—I'm sure we only hear about five percent of the things you'd like to say to us. Go on."

"You think I walk around mentally insulting you all?"

Jack laughed. "Ianto, you're one of the most succinctly sarcastic people I've ever met who wasn't a fictional character. It's hard to believe you don't."

"You can't meet a fictional character," Ianto replied, after the beat that it took for Jack's words to make sense.

"Ah… Not yet," Jack said, and Ianto thought he could see the typically knowing grin. "But give it a few hundred years."

Ianto squinted, and the world wobbled as Jack abruptly went back out of focus. The lines blurred past faces and body parts. He could still feel Jack's hands on his feet, though, rubbing and washing and making him clean again, and with enough concentration, he could see the tones of Jack's skin, the dark blue of his shirt.

"Ianto?" Jack's voice came.

Jack would look good in dark red. Not something too light, because Jack didn't look quite right in anything with yellow tones in it.

There was an insistent squeeze on his leg again. "Ianto, talk to me."

"Sorry," Ianto said, closing his eyes. It was difficult to think and focus on seeing at the same time. "What should I say?"

"Whatever comes to mind," Jack answered patiently.

"Well, whatever you may think, my mind is actually a very dull place," Ianto said. "Mostly lists."

Jack laughed. "Of course. Read me a list, Ianto."

"Which one?"

"Whichever one you updated last."

Ianto thought for a moment. "I'll have to clean up the blood on the floor next to Tosh's station before it stains. There's also bloodstains in the cell I slept in last night that I have to clean, and the bathtub in my flat is still stained pink. Your sheets have blood on them. Owen spilled the coffee grounds this morning and tried to hide it by pushing them under the coffee machine. You've got a stain on the bottom right corner of your coat, and the fourth button's come loose again, but that's on another list. Tosh spilled something on her chair the other night. Gwen asked me to see if I could get a stain out of a skirt, but she won't tell me what it is so I suspect it's either going to be menstrual blood or Rhys' cum."

He stopped and placed his towel-bound hands on the table, the world tilting, and he was glad that he already had his eyes closed.

Down by his feet, Jack was laughing again. "All right. So that's your Things to Clean List?"

"Things That Still Hold Hope of Being Cleaned," Ianto said absently. "There's another list for less fortunate surfaces."

There was another laugh, this one farther away, and then a strange sensation on the ball of his foot—

"Jack," Ianto said, forcing his eyes open to the blurry, wobbling world. "Did you just kiss my foot?"

"It was very kissable," Jack said reasonably.

"It's a _foot_."

"A foot that I just washed."

A shiver ran down Ianto's body unbidden, making his entire body jerk. "Jack, the water's cold."

"You want me to change it out for hot water?"

Ianto frowned at the swimming colors before him. "That's a lot of water. Why are we underwater, again?"

A small rush of water—no, breath, it was _air_—came from somewhere in the blur. "We're not underwater. Ianto? Ianto—dammit. Owen!"

Ianto struggled to surface. "No—no, I'm fine. There's no water, I promise, no water. Sorry."

He felt pressure on his shoulders, but the world was spinning and blurring too much to keep his eyes open and so he had to close them and ride out the wave of dizziness in the dark. His heart pounded in his ears with a thick pulse that made him want to throw up.

"Lie down," Jack's voice urged softly. "Come on, down you go…"

"M'fine," Ianto insisted, even as he was pushed back. "Jack, stop, m'fine."

"Jack?"

"Fuck," Ianto breathed as his back made contact with the floor—table, he was on a table—and the shift of each muscle against the unyielding surface was like flaming needles tearing through his skin, right down to the bone. "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck…"

"Ianto?"

"Sodding hell, Harkness, I leave you alone for ten minutes—don't let him sit up! Christ."

"No, no, no, no," Jack said quickly, aborting Ianto's weak effort to sit up.

"Back," Ianto choked out.

"Heart rate's too slow," Owen's voice said from far away, but getting closer. "He's never bled this long before. If we let him sit for any longer he's gonna lose too much blood—congratulations, Teaboy, you've won yourself a blood transfusion."

"Back," Ianto repeated, with effort. He was vaguely aware, through the throbbing ache of his back, that the dizziness and nausea had receded significantly, but it barely registered against the overwhelming need to_get off his back_. "Back hurts. Let me up."

"How long has your back hurt?" Owen demanded.

Ianto felt his head loll to one side of the table, and the cool steel felt incredibly good. "Few days. Hurts."

"Oh for—no time like the present to tell me!" Owen snapped. "Jack, get him on his side. You know how to work the Bekaran scanner?"

"Yep."

Ianto gritted his teeth as Jack pushed him up onto his side, pain shooting through his back with each touch. Despite his best efforts, a grunt escaped.

"Sorry," Jack murmured, rubbing his thumb in an apologetic circle just below Ianto's shoulder blade, driving a bolt of agony straight into Ianto's lungs.

Ianto threw up.

"Oh, lovely," Owen muttered, from very close.

"Did I get your shoes?" Ianto croaked hopefully.

"No," Owen said grouchily. "Your aim still sucks."

"Better than Suzie's is," Ianto mumbled as the world tilted a little more. His back was no longer hurting, but there was a strange hollow feeling to it, like it had gone to sleep and he couldn't quite feel it. In fact, his whole body felt heavy, like he was weighting down the world as it slipped and slid on ice. "Jack, the water's cold."

A hand touched his cheek, burning.

"There's no water, Ianto," Jack's voice said, rippled and echoing.

Like water.

"_Is_."

"I promise you, there's no water. We're in the Hub—c'mon, think about it, how would we put the Hub underwater? We'd have to fill up all the basement levels, and I don't even know how many of those there are. It's impossible."

Impossible. Water was impossible.

"C—cold. W—w—"

A finger of warmth on his arm, and Ianto felt as if his entire being funneled into it like an electric charge that had finally found a wire to travel through. The cold receded, and in its place was a wonderful darkness. His body began to disappear.

"Harkness, you're making it worse, get your hands—"

A shriek.

"His side—Owen, his side! It's—"

"I can't—shit. Shit, it's like a foot long! You've got to wrap it, Jack, I've got to get this transfusion—"

"Ianto? Ianto can you hear me?"

Only his lips were left. Everything else had gone.

And his lips were so, so cold.

"L—l—lied," his lips said hoarsely. He could feel them disintegrating as well. "The w—water. It's here. It's swallowing me alive. H—help me."

"Ianto, there _is no water!_"

"J—jack. Help."

And then his lips were gone too.


	2. Chapter 2

They were arguing. And they hurt. They were hurting each other.

He needed to make the hurt stop.

So much—so much _anger_. They burned so brightly, all of them, tongues of flame in a dead world, and every vicious word hurled across the vortex made the flames flicker like the mouth of a god had blown on them.

He loved them so much. All of them. And they were hurting each other.

_Stop_.

The flames flared like beacons.

He heard Welsh and Japanese and French and a language called Boen, and he knew them all. The words were meaningless because he knew the meaning inside the words, and that was what mattered.

The flames were panicking. They were frightened. But they were no longer hurting each oth—

"Ianto!"

The voice slammed into his chest (he had a chest) and hands gripped his shoulders (he had shoulders) and found himself pinned down through the fabric of space and time. Immovable. Fixed.

He was sucked into the void.

"Ianto, n'tukku!"

_Ianto, stop it._

Into the void.

"N'tukku! N'tukku, Ianto, n'tukku pe!"

Void.

He fell away from (the chest) and (the shoulders), into nothing, and the flames blazed.

ooo

Bone split, muscle wrapped and strangled, flesh twisted, and the body became as close to home as it would ever be.

(He made it so.)

ooo

Cold. Wet. Stone. Glass. Box.

The body.

And something moving in the dark.

"Ianto, sweetheart? Can you hear me? It's Gwen."

_Yahn. Toh._

"I know you're in there somewhere, Ianto. If you'd just—just respond. Let me know that you can hear me. Please, I haven't got much time before Jack gets back."

_Yahn. Toh._

_Yahn-toh._

The body did not move. He was waiting for wind and light and warmth to move the body, because he knew how to move the body in that. This tiny cell was not known. Not safe.

"Go on, Ianto. I know you can hear me. I know you can. Go on, blink for me. Move your head. Anything."

The body did not move.

"Ianto. _Please_."

_Ianto._

No wind. No sun.

The body would wait.

_Ianto. Ianto. I'm Ianto._

_Let me out._

ooo

The body felt pain. The body felt—

Where was the wind?

Still.

Still.

Still.

_Let me go._

The body trembled.

The body felt—

Fear.

ooo

Rock rock rock rock rock—how human. Curled like human. Flesh like human. Afraid like human.

He wanted to go home.

_Please. Let me go_.

Then he—

_Jack_

—brought it in. And it was empty. Cold. Nothing.

He looked to him _Jack_ and saw the warmth, the light, the presence. Normal. Right. But the thing he _Jack_ was pushing into the box, it was—

_Weevil_

_Let me g—_

And it was nothing. Empty. Evil.

It was too much.

The body screamed. The mouth opened and the ear-splitting, throat-tearing screams ripped out through the air. The limbs pushed the body away—

Scrambled. Curled. Flesh.

He was flesh.

The nothing was put in the box—it was staying, it was as trapped as he was, it would be there forever with its cold and empty and wrong—and he screamed. The body screamed and he screamed and _Ianto _screamed.

"Ianto! _Ianto!_"

And the screams were not enough, he needed to use the body to make it more, to descend to that base human level to communicate so that it would stop, stop, stop, stop already—and that was when the body turned the scream into a sob. Into words.

"_Stop!_" he-the-body-Ianto screamed.

The body and Ianto sobbed. Maybe him as well.

"Stop, make it stop—"

"—_let me go_—"

"—why is there nothing there? Why is it nothing? It's nothing, it's so empty and dark and cold, it's nothing. Make it stop. Make it stop, please make it stop, please, please, please, have mercy, make it stop—"

"—_please—_"

A scream wrenched from him-the-body-Ianto, and the body gripped its head.

"_Jack_—"

Twist.

"—make it stop, take me back—"

Twist.

"—_Jack, help me_—"

Twist.

Shudder.

Eyes closed, but he could still feel it.

"Help," he-the-body-Ianto breathed, so human. "Help, help, help, help, help, help—"

"The only one I want to help is Ianto," he _Jack_ said, the words driving through him like nails. "Let me speak to Ianto."

_Not you._

_Doesn't want to help you_.

The body closed its eyes.

The body was tired. The body hurt.

_Not you_.

"Let me talk to Ianto," he _Jack_ said again.

The horrible nothing pulsed across the room, cold as ice, and—

_Not you_.

_Doesn't want to help you._

He just wanted to go home.

"Ianto," he _Jack_ said, quiet and insistent. "Ianto, come on, fight it. Come back to me. Fight it. _Fight it._"

_Not you, not you, not you._

He clung.

"You didn't fight," the body said, sobbing. "You let me have it. You _let_ me."

_Let me go_.

"You let me have it! _You let me have it!_"

_Please. Please let me go. Not you, doesn't want to help you, please let me go please doesn't want_

He-the-body-Ianto screamed.

"Deus meus, Deus meus, dereliquisti me."

And the body went limp.

ooo

Ianto awoke to cold, wet stone scraping his chest, an odd ache in his body as if he'd run a marathon several days ago, and a familiar scent that he immediately (somewhat pathetically) placed as the smell of the Weevil cages in the depths of the Hub.

His eyes cracked open, and he saw a sideways view of the glass wall holding him inside of the cell. His cell. It was all so… familiar.

He flashed on that night he'd spend in this same cell, alone, bleeding—

Bleeding.

Pain.

_Him_.

Ianto would have prayed for it all to have been a dream, except for the two spots of pressure that he felt on his shoulder blades and the light tickling of feathers on his bare back. There was no point in denying that they were there. Not practical. He was always practical, and to deny that his body had been changed and to waste time with emotions and aberrant mental states—that was not practical.

He wondered when—if he'd be allowed out of the cell.

Perhaps he _should_ bother with emotions and denial, if it would prove his humanity.

Ianto considered it, but the idea of falling into hysterics in front of Jack was… distasteful. Jack wouldn't need hysterics. Jack knew him, and Jack would know that he was himself without some tearful identity crisis.

Knowing that there was no audio on the CCTV, Ianto pushed himself up off the ground and into a cross-legged position. He took a moment to revel in the fact that his back no longer ached and his feet no longer felt strange, made an effort to ignore the dried blood on his hands, arms, feet, face, and oddly enough, the right side of his chest, and looked up to where he knew the camera was hidden in this cell.

Then, he waited.

ooo

Jack came down approximately three hours later. He was wearing his coat, but his hair was flat and rumpled instead of its usual impeccably gelled self, and Ianto wondered what _that_ meant.

"Hi," Ianto said quietly, as Jack approached.

His voice was hoarse. Vaguely, he remembered screaming.

"Hi," Jack replied, amicable and cautious at the same time.

"Jack, I—"

And Ianto realized that he had no idea what to say.

Jack waited.

"I'm… me," he finally said, a bit blankly. "Just me."

"Good to hear," Jack said, hands still stuffed in his pockets, feet still planted on the ground.

"Whatever it was—" Ianto paused. "Jack, it was terrified. Paralyzed, half-mad. Every breath it took with my body, every time it dared to move my muscles, it just wanted to go home. It didn't understand this world. These—"

He gestured vaguely at the area behind his shoulder.

"—it was only trying to, I don't know, get closer to its original form, I imagine."

"And now it's just gone?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

Ianto nodded.

Jack waited.

"It's been slowly taking over my body for the last two weeks, Jack," Ianto reminded Jack, rather reasonably. "I think it's safe to say that I know what its presence feels like, and it's completely gone."

"It could come back," Jack countered. "It could come back, and we have no idea how to stop it from taking you."

"Do you know what it was?" Ianto asked, straightening a little. "I can check the archives that we haven't got on the Mainframe yet, it's—"

"How's your Latin?" Jack interrupted.

Ianto paused, thrown. "I… imagine that it's on par with your Welsh, sir. Why?"

"Deus meus, Deus meus, dereliquisti me," Jack said, and he drew a small, fat book out of his pocket. "Roughly translated, 'God, my God, you have forsaken me'. Owen, of all people, recognized it. From there, we put together the bleeding hands and feet, the water turning into blood, the speaking in tongues—and we got this."

Jack reached over and pushed a few buttons on the keypad next to the cell, and the door slid open about three inches. He tossed the book in, and closed the cell.

The gold lettering on the face of the book glints in the dim lighting.

_The Holy Bible._

"You want answers?" Jack nodded down to the Bible. "That's about as close as we've gotten."

ooo

The Bible did not hold any answers for Ianto.

Instead, he poked at the tiny quivering ball of _him_ that had hid itself away in the very darkest corners of his mind, always quiet and always trying to make itself smaller, smaller, smaller, until he finally got a response.

_No_.

Ianto prodded.

_No_.

He prodded again.

_don'twantpleasescaredwhydidn'tyoustopme_

Ianto winced, hand twitching to press itself against his temple, but he resisted at the last moment just in case anyone was watching him over the CCTV.

Didn't, didn't let _letmeyouletmeyouletme_

He hadn't.

Hadn't.

_did_

The childish answer came complete with a small wave of petulance and misery.

Ianto prodded once more, and felt _him_ fold tighter, smaller, lesser, pressing away—and Ianto withdrew, the cell around him coming back into sharp focus. He blinked once, twice, and then sighed and uncrossed his legs, pushing himself up to sit on the rock-bench on the right side of the cell. He took the Bible with him.

Sitting down, he opened to the first page, neatly tore it out, and for lack of anything better to do began folding it into a frog.

ooo

Ianto had a frog, two cranes, a boat, a rabbit's head, a (blank, and therefore utterly useless) fortune teller, a pelican, and several failed attempts at a cat by the time Jack appeared again. He had a tray of food in his hands.

"I like the origami," Jack said casually.

"Tosh," Ianto replied.

"I take it you're done with the Bible, then?"

"Read it," Ianto said, glancing down at the book he'd been steadily tearing pages out of for the last hour or so. "Thought the writing was dry and inconsistent, and the only characters I could identify with died horrifically in the last chapter. I can't imagine why it's so popular."

Jack was not amused. "Ianto."

"What was I supposed to get from it?" Ianto asked, raising his eyes to meet Jack's at last. "That this could have all been avoided had I only accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior?"

Jack looked as if he was fast losing patience with Ianto's sarcasm, but Ianto didn't particularly care. Jack wasn't the one stuck in a cold, uncomfortable cell surrounded by Weevils, now was he?

"There are people who bleed, like you did," Jack said, after a pause. "Their hands and feet. It's called stigmata."

"Do they also change massive amounts of water into blood, and then proceed to grow new appendages out of their back?" Ianto asked, eyebrows raised.

"Ianto."

"How much longer are you going to keep me down here?" Ianto asked, unable to help the anger leaking into his voice. "You told me that I wasn't a prisoner. Tell me—did you mean that, or was that just to ensure my cooperation?"

Jack opened his mouth.

"It's protocol, of course," Ianto said, cutting Jack off before he could start. "Personnel who are determined to be compromised must be contained until the cause is determined. If reversal of the effects is impractical, the division leader will directly execute the employee."

"That's not—"

"But you won't kill me, will you?" Ianto interrupted again. "I know you, and I know that you won't. You'll keep me down here, like you do with the Weevils—keep me locked up for years and years in the hope that one day you'll be able to save me, because you refuse to kill me."

"Do you _want_ me to kill you?" Jack demanded, slapping a hand to the glass of Ianto's cell with a _crack_. "Is that really how you want to die—at the hands of your boss in a cell, in a basement no one knows about, for absolutely _no_ reason?"

Boss.

That was the word that stuck in Ianto's mind, piercing and echoing and imprinting itself like a brand.

"I'd rather suffer for the split second it would take for the bullet to tear through my brain," he said tightly, hands clenched into fists, "than suffer for decades because you like to pass your cowardice off as humanity."

An ugly look passed over Jack's face, and his fingers gripped the holes in the glass pane as his eyes bored into Ianto's.

"I am _trying to save you_."

"And I don't need to be saved. If you'd just believe me—"

"You know I can't just—"

"I _know!_" Ianto exploded, jumping to his feet, breathing hard.

Jack stared.

He didn't seem to be aware of the thin trickle of blood running down the side of his temple, but Ianto was. He could feel Jack's pulse like it was his own, pounding like drums, aching to spurt free from the body. The skin of the hands and feet and side and skull were _begging_ to split open. They ached. They throbbed.

Ianto's fists clenched and unclenched, using ever last ounce of his control to keep Jack's skin from tearing open.

"Go away," Ianto gritted out.

Jack glanced down at the tray of food that was still held in one hand. "I have—"

"I'm not hungry," Ianto interrupted.

"You haven't eaten in days," Jack said, with some semblance of a reasonable tone. "You must be hungry."

"I'm not," Ianto said flatly.

"I'll leave it here anyway," Jack said, punching the keys that would open the glass pane. "Just in case."

Ianto silently watched him place the tray on the floor and then scoop up the Bible and all of his origami, not moving a muscle until Jack had closed the door to his cell, gave Ianto an inscrutable look, and finally left him alone.

Jack still hadn't noticed the tiny trail of blood down his temple.

He hadn't known how close Ianto had been to killing him.

ooo

Hands trembling, Ianto's eyes skated over the food—roast beef sandwich, banana, pack of biscuits, thermos—

Thermos. Liquid. Calm.

He seized it, took one or two goes at opening it before he managed the screw-top, and gulped down half of it.

Didn't work.

Another sip.

Another.

Anot—

Fury surged, hot and racing, funneling down his arm, making his fingers warm and his lungs seize with the sudden release, and he was—

_Free_.

Gasping, ears nearly ringing, Ianto felt like a great weight had been yanked off of him. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, freely, and felt his fist unclench with a sharp twinge as his nails were extracted from the skin of his palm.

Minutes later, it occurred to him that the water bottle had gone... warm.

Unscrewing the cap released a familiar sweet but bitter scent, and a glance inside the bottle revealed that there was now a brown liquid in there instead of water.

A cautious sip confirmed that it was coffee.

Rather excellent coffee, in fact.

Ianto let a small smile grace his lips, and drank more even though he wasn't thirsty. Inside his head he was laughing like a madman.

ooo

He marked time by Weevil feedings. It was usually his job, but now Jack came in on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with the tub of meat and the Weevil spray.

Sometime between Monday and Wednesday, there came the sound of the door to the vaults opening. Ianto let his attempt at a Welsh translation of _I Kissed a Girl_ fall to the side (he was fairly certain that there was no Welsh translation for 'chapstick', anyway) and wondered if this visit was for him—possibly Owen, possibly armed with a tranquilizing gun.

He was not at all expecting to see Gwen appear, alone and with a distinctly shifty look on her face.

"Gwen," he said, with much less surprise than he felt.

"Ianto," Gwen said somewhat faintly, her eyes wide as she stared at the space just above Ianto's shoulders. Then she visibly shook herself, and focused on his face. "Ianto. Sorry. Hi."

Ianto smirked, ever so slightly. "Hi."

"It's just—they look a lot different when you really see them, you know?" Gwen said, eyes flicking between Ianto's face, and the space above his shoulder.

The smirk left.

"I'm sure I wouldn't know," Ianto said, very evenly.

Gwen winced a little. "Sorry. Look, I haven't got much time—we've not been allowed down to see you since the whole speaking-in-tongues thing, and this is the first time I've seen Jack sleeping in days—he's been monitoring you himself pretty much around the clock. I can't decide if it's sweet or creepy."

"Creepy," Ianto said without hesitation.

"Really?" Gwen asked, looking a little crushed. "You don't think it's even a little bit sweet? He's been so worried about you, Ianto."

"He's also holding me prisoner in a cell with absolutely nothing to do, and watching me around the clock for even the slightest sign of insanity. You might as well take 'sweet' out back and shoot it in the head."

Gwen gave him a sympathetic look, and Ianto tried his best to not twitch.

"I'd bring you something to do, but Jack doesn't want you to have anything not absolutely necessary until we figure out what it was that—did this."

"I got a Bible for a few days," Ianto pointed out.

"Jack was sort of hoping you'd—react. Or whatever it is you've got inside you would react, anyway."

"So why are you here, then?" Ianto asked.

"I—" Gwen stopped, and eventually shrugged one shoulder in a helpless gesture.

That was Gwen, letting compassion speed her along too quickly for things like plans and forethought.

"Don't take this as the sign of insanity that Jack's looking for," Ianto said, when the silence had stretched on just long enough to be considered awkward, "but there isn't a word for chapstick in Welsh, is there?"

Gwen blinked. "No. Suppose you could say _gwefus… _er, _eli gwefus_, though, couldn't you?"

"_Eli gwefus_," Ianto repeated, counting syllables in his head. "That works, actually. I should have thought of that."

"Should I even ask why you're looking to say chapstick in Welsh?" Gwen asked hesitantly.

Ianto opened his mouth—not to tell her, but to get her some flip comment that would spur the conversation on in another direction—when the sound of the door opening and an unmistakably furious Jack Harkness storming into the vaults made him pause.

Gwen's head went to the right, fear crossing his face for the briefest of moments, but by the time Jack appeared in front of Ianto's cell she had assumed her standard defensive posture and had set her face into the absolute picture of stubbornness.

Jack first glanced at Ianto, who was very sedately sitting on the ground, and then turned to face Gwen.

"Upstairs," Jack said. "Now."

"I won't," Gwen said resolutely.

"Gwen, I'm not joking around," Jack said tensely, with another quick glance at Ianto. "Go upstairs. We can argue about this all you want, but _not here_."

"I am not leaving my teammate down here to rot!" Gwen said hotly. "He's still human—he's our Ianto! _Your_ Ianto! He deserves better than this."

"Gwen."

"How long will you keep him down here?" Gwen demanded. "How long is long enough to say that he's safe? A month? A year?"

Jack reached out with one hand, but Gwen smacked it away and immediately assumed a fighting position. Jack clearly held in a frustrated sigh, and glanced in at Ianto again.

"I'm not leaving him, Jack," Gwen insisted, eyes shining with sudden tears. "I'm not."

Jack opened his mouth, but Ianto beat him to it.

"Gwen, it's all right," he said.

Gwen turned her head to stare at him with wide eyes. "Ianto, no—"

"It's protocol," Ianto explained calmly. "I have to remain in isolation until the threat has been neutralized."

Behind Gwen, Jack was drawing a white cloth out of his pocket, and taking unnoticed steps closer to Gwen.

"And keep you locked up down here?" Gwen demanded, completely focused on Ianto. "All by yourself, for weeks? Months? What happens if we _never_ figure it out?"

"Believe me," Ianto said with a thin smile, "this is positively humane compared to what Torchwood One would have done to me. I find—"

Gwen let out a muffled shriek as Jack caught her around the shoulders and pressed the white cloth over her mouth and nose.

She quieted quickly.

Jack hefted her body up into a bridal-style carry, and turned to Ianto to give him a nod of thanks, which Ianto returned almost immediately.

ooo

No crying.

Jack would be watching.

In. Out. In. Out. Breathe.

No crying.

Ianto shuddered, and something hot and wet pulsed from the center of his palm.

Time passed.

ooo

Jack fed the Weevils without so much as a glance at Ianto.

Ianto ate the food, for something to do (a two-in-one deal—he got the thrill of eating it, and surprisingly, the thrill of shitting it out some time later). Several more pop songs were translated into Welsh, and when that got dull he resorted to going over his mental lists, over and over and over until they were no longer lists but long chains of syllables.

More time passed.

ooo

Ianto had been conscious for at least nine days when Jack appeared again. It was Saturday or Sunday, one of the two, and Ianto was only half-awake when he heard the sound of the door to the vaults opening, followed by the sound of Jack's boots on the stone floor.

Jack stopped in front of his cell.

Ianto looked up.

"You were—right," Jack said quietly. His jaw was set, and he wasn't looking Ianto in the eye. "We can't keep you like this."

"Clearly, you can," Ianto replied.

"Ianto."

Ianto stared at him impassively.

Jack sighed. "It's not an easy situation, all right? Something _possessed _you. It changed you, it forced itself into your mind, it incapacitated us with absolutely no effort, and we have no idea what—"

"Jack."

Jack looked at him, face utterly raw.

"I know," Ianto said tiredly. "I understand."

Silence.

"What's the plan?"

Jack looked away from him, face twisting. "We're going to put you in the cryo."

Ianto's mouth went dry.

"The cryo?"

"There's—Ianto, I swear, if there were another way—"

"I know," Ianto said again, but there was a wobble to his voice this time.

Jack's fingers flexed in the holes of the glass wall, but he still wouldn't look at Ianto. The sound of his breathing echoed off the stone walls.

"You're saying this to test the thing—whatever you think is still inside of me," Ianto tried, shakily. He sucked in a breath of stale air. "You're waiting for it to panic and try to take over again, that's why you're saying this."

There was a long, long pause, and Jack continued to not look at him.

Finally, in a hoarse voice, Jack asked, "Is it working?"

"No," Ianto answered.

Jack turned his face to reveal eyes shining with tears. "Then we're going to have to freeze you. I'm sorry. I'm _so sorry_, Ianto."

Ianto swallowed painfully, closing his eyes and carefully regulating his breathing. It hurt. God, it hurt.

The cryo.

"I understand," he whispered, the sob held in with an agony like drowning. "I understand."

He always did.

ooo

On Monday, Jack came in to feed the Weevils. He avoided looking Ianto.

"Jack."

There was the sound of wet meat slapping on stone, a Weevil snarling, and a glass pane slamming shut. A pause. Then footsteps in Ianto's direction.

Jack appeared, sans coat, chin stuck out in a way the meant he was either uncomfortable or attempting to assert his dominance over some perceived threat. Ianto wasn't sure if it was either of those, or both, in this case.

"Ianto," he said amicably.

"Before you freeze me," Ianto began, refusing to let his throat close up around the words, "I'd like a final meal. A—a Last Supper, if you will."

"You don't need to eat," Jack reminded him.

"A steak," Ianto continued, ignoring Jack, "with jacket potatoes, steamed broccoli, a blueberry muffin from Kadrowski's Bakery, and a pint of beer."

Jack was startled into a laugh, and he lost most of his defensive posture without seeming to realize it. "That's a tall order there, Ianto Jones."

"Fine china and actual silver, if you can manage it," Ianto added. "And a cloth napkin."

Jack grinned outright.

Ianto gave him a small, quick smile in return.

"Honestly…" Ianto said, after a moment had passed and his amusement had faded, "I just want to taste food one last time before I'm thrown in the deep freeze. Even a curry would do. Just because I don't need to eat doesn't meant that I don't miss it."

"That's all you want?" Jack asked, grin losing a fraction of its wattage. "Just some food?"

"And a wash, before you freeze me," Ianto said, after a moment's consideration. "It wouldn't do to make an impression of poor personal hygiene on whoever defrosts me."

"Of course," Jack agreed. His grin, now bordering on nostalgic, faded a little more. "Anything else?"

"That's all," Ianto said.

"You're sure?" Jack asked. "Absolutely nothing else that you can think to ask for?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing at all?"

"Is there something you'd like me to ask for, Jack?" Ianto asked, knowing perfectly well that there was.

Jack faltered.

Ianto waited, impassive.

"The opportunity to make us one last pot of coffee?" Jack finally tried.

Wrong.

"I'll tell you how I make your coffee," Ianto offered. "It'll be like I've never gone. No need to worry about getting through those first few days of adjustment when you switch back to instant."

Jack stared at him, plainly hurt, but Ianto wasn't about to take it back. Not when Jack was chickening out like this.

"Keep the recipe to yourself," Jack finally said, sounding somewhat hoarse. "It'll give me something to look forward to when we pull you out."

"I'll look forward to it as well, sir," Ianto replied.

Jack's face twitched, like he was holding back some great torrent of emotion, but after a tense moment of silence he gave Ianto a muttered goodbye and turned, hurrying toward the exit.

ooo

Jack appeared with a steak, jacket potatoes, steamed asparagus, a blueberry muffin, and a bottle of Brains Dark.

Ianto's heart ached.

"I didn't cook it myself, don't worry," Jack said as he punched the combination to the cell door. "I picked it up from a steakhouse downtown."

"I appreciate it," Ianto said quietly.

Jack punched the last key, and the door swung open. He offered Ianto a small, sad smile, and crouched down to set the tray on the ground—

Ianto stabbed _him_ and focused—

focused—

focused—

_Bleed him_.

And Jack's right side split open, blood gushing out, his hands, his forehead, his eyes streaming blood.

It was almost as if Jack had been shot.

Jack looked down at himself in astonishment, lips parted. He swayed. His face turned up to stare at Ianto with dim realization, too late, too far gone to do anything about it, and he dropped to his knees with a breathless grunt. The blood pooled around him as his side continued to gush. The slice had to be at least a foot long.

"I'm sorry," Ianto whispered.

Jack blinked slowly, face awash in confusion and hurt, already too far gone to do much more.

Ianto could feel him slipping away. He could feel the blood leaving Jack's body through the massive wound in his side, the blood vessels collapsing on themselves with the lack of blood, the lack of pressure, and the heart beginning to stutter.

Truly, he _was_ sorry.

"You know that it has to be like this," Ianto said quietly, eyes fixed on Jack's bleeding palm. Jack was slowly, ever-so-slowly curling it into a fist with tiny gurgling noises. "You were hoping I'd do it. But I'm still sorry."

Jack, unable to keep himself upright any longer, fell backward onto the ground. His heart was nearly stopped.

Ianto carefully made his way over to Jack's body, sprawled through the opening out of the cell.

"I have to find myself again, Jack," Ianto explained. He could still see the faintest hint of consciousness in Jack's face. "I can't be Torchwood's, and I can't be yours. I have to go and find myself."

Jack was gone.

He bent over and pressed a kiss to Jack's forehead, then rose to his feet and for the first time in sixteen days stepped out of his cell.

ooo

Jack really _had_ been hoping he'd escape.

The Hub was deserted, Ianto's access codes hadn't been changed, and nothing was locked down more than it usually was. He was free in a matter of minutes.

Standing just outside the fake tourist office, Ianto stared out at the rolling waters of Mermaid Quay, inhaling the scent of seawater and car exhaust and greasy chips, feeling the wind—

Something in him stirred.

Wind.

The wind was here. His body knew what to do with wind.

Without further conscious thought, Ianto broke into a run across the plass, hurtling his body toward the end of the concrete and the beginning of the bay as his limbs rejoiced in the ability to move, to breathe, to feel strong and useful again, and they—

—great gray wings, feathered and powerful, they were _his_ wings now—

—unfurled and sank into the updraft like breathing, lifting him up like he was weightless, like he could go on forever, like he was finally being raised up into a place he could call home, and it was _glorious_.

Ianto Jones was his own. He was free.

ooo

Some hundreds of years later, Jack will meet Ianto again, and Ianto will be dressed in a suit carefully tailored to accommodate his wings, barefoot but immaculate. He'll give Jack a quick smile before taking up an impassive expression.

Jack will yank him into the hardest hug Ianto has ever experienced, to the point of pain, and only after a few moments will Ianto realize that Jack is crying into his shoulder.

"Thank you," Jack will say in a choked voice, fighting sobs. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

And Ianto will understand.


End file.
